Sewing-machine shuttle.



C. H. HAGELSTEIN.

SEWING MACHINE SHUTTLE.

APPLICATION FILED .IUNE13. 1914.

1 151 45., -PatentedAug. 31,1915.

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UNTTED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

CHRISTIAN H. I-IAGELSTEIN, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO THE REECE BUTTON HOLE MACHINE COMPANY, 015 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, A CORPORATION OF MAINE.

SEWING-MACHINE SHUTTLE.

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Specification of Letters Patent. Patented Aug. 31, 1915 Application filed June 13, 1914. Seria1No;84='5,012.

To all whom it may concern: 1

Be it known that I, CHRISTIAN H. HAGEL- a citizen of the United States, residing at Boston, county of Suffolk, State of Massachusetts, have invented an Improvement in Sewing-Machine Shuttles, of which the following description, in connection with the accompanying drawing, is a specification, like characters on the drawing representing like parts. I

This invention relates to sewing machine shuttles and has for its general object to provide a novel sewing machine shuttle which is constructed to eliminate many of the disadvantages which are inherent in sewing machine shuttles as now commonly made.

More particularly, the invention relates to'a shuttle having an improved means for retaining the bobbin in the bobbin-receiving chamber and giving to the bobbin suflicient frictional pressure to prevent the latter from over-running as the thread is drawn therefrom, which means is so constructed as to facilitate the removal of the bobbin from the chamber.

The invention also aims to provide a novel shuttle which has a shape to facilitate the passage of the shuttle through the loop of needle thread and to reduce to a minimum the liability of the shuttle thread becoming entangled in the shuttle driver or other parts of the machine.

These and other features and advantages of my improved shuttle will be more fully hereinafter described and then the novel features of the invention will be pointed out in the appended claims.

In order to give an understanding of the invention I have illustrated in the drawing a selected embodiment thereof which will now be described.

Figure 1 is a top plan view of a shuttle embodying my invention; Fig. 2 is a section on the line wac, Fig. 1; Fig. 3 is a side view of the shuttle; Fig. i is a section on the line y4 Figs. 1 and 3, showing the way in which the shuttle passes through the loop of needle thread; Fig. 5 is a bottom plan View of the shuttle.

The sewing machine shuttle herein shown is of that type comprising a body portion 1 shaped to present a hook or point 2 which enters and spreads the loop of needle thread as the shuttle passes therethrough, and havmg a bobbin-receivingchamber 3 in which thebobbin 4 is received.

In shuttles of this nature means are usually provided for holding tl'l6 bobbin in the chamber and where the shuttle is used in a sewing machine that gives to the shuttle an osclllatory rather than a rotary motion some means are usually provided for applying a retarding friction to the bobbin to prevent the latter from spinning or over-running.

One feature of my invention relates to a novel means having the two functions of retalnmg the bobbin in the bobbin-receiving chamber and applying to the bobbin sufficient frictional pressure to prevent the latv ter from over-running. The means I em ploy for this purpose have been especially designed so as not only to accomplish the above ends but also to facilitate the removal of the bobbin from the shuttle whenever this becomes necessary. In my improved shuttle the bobbin-receiving chamber 3 is open on the underside of the shuttle to permit the bobbin to be placed in position or to be removed from the chamber, and the bobbin 4- is held in the chamber by a bobbin-retaining member 6 which not only retains the bobbin 1n position butalso cooperates with other elements to apply to the bobbin the desired frictional pressure to prevent the latter from over-running and to apply to the thread the requiredtension. This retaining member 6 is yieldingly held in position by means which are adapted to apply a substantially uniform frictional pressure on the bobbin even though the latter varies more or less in thickness.

In the construction herein illustrated the retaining member 6 is provided at one end with a laterally-extending portion 7 which is received in an aperture 8 formed in the shuttle and which has screw-threaded thereto a screw member 9, the head of which extends through the shuttle and projects above the upper face thereof. This head will preferably be rounded somewhat, as shown, so as not to present any sharp corners or to constitute a projection that would be liable to catch in the thread. Situated beneath the head of the screw member 9 and encir-' in the aperture 8. The action of the spring 10 tends to yieldingly hold the retaining member 6 against the underside of the bobbin 4 and to hold said bobbin against the 5 plate-12 which spans the upper end of the bobbin-receivin chamber 3.

Both the bobbin retainer 6 and the plate 12 are preferably provided with bobbin-centering projections 13 and '14, respectively, which projections enter the ends of the central aperture 15 formed in the bobbin. These projections 13 and 14 have a general conical shape and are constructed to engage the bobbin at the termini of the aperture 15, 15 as shown'at 16 in Fig. 2, the construction being such that neither the plate 12.nor the bobbin retainer 6 have frictional engagement with the exterior surface of the flanges 17 of the bobbin. As a result the bobbin is centrally supported and the flanges 17 are prevented from coming in contact with the walls of the bobbin-receiving chamber 3. The advantage of this construction is that the flanges of the bobbin do not become worn to a thin edge as frequently happens in some types of shuttles where the bobbin is loosely placed in the bobbin-receiving chamber. Another advantage of this construction is that the spring which yieldingly holds the bobbin retainer in position and applies the desired frictional pressure to the bobbin is entirely confined within the body of the shuttle and is thereby protected from loss or injury. Furthermore the construction above described is such that considerable variations in the thickness of the bobbin will have no appreciable effect upon the tension of the spring, and, therefore, bobbins of different thicknesses can be successfully used in the same shuttle without necessitating any tension adjustment of the spring.

Still another advantage of this construction is that it facilitates the removal of the bobbin from the shuttle, for in order to accomplish this the operator merely presses downwardly on the projecting head of the screw member 9 thereby bodily moving the bobbin retainer 6 into a position where the free end 19 thereof is free from the Wall of the bobbin chamber so that the bobbin retainer can be swung laterally into the dotted line position Fig. 5. When the bobbin retai'ner has been moved beyond this dotted line position the bobbin isithen free to be removed from the shuttle.

When the bobbin retainer is in its operative position shown in full lines Fig. 5, the free end 19 thereof occupies the recess 5 formed in the wall of the bobbin-receiving 60 chamber and is thereby locked against lateral movement. It will be noted that the recess 5 presents no obstruction to the free bodily movement of the end 19 of the bobbin I retainer so that whenever a bobbin is within 66 the shuttle the spring 10 is operative to hold the bobbin retainer against the bobbin with the desired frictional pressure.

The plate 12 may'either be an integral part 'of the shuttle or may be a separate part, and in the latter case it may be secured to the shuttle in a variety of ways without departing from my invention. In the illustrated construction said plate 12 is separate from the shuttle body and is held in position by a screw 22 situated at one end thereof, the other end being received in the undercut groove 23 formed in the shuttle body. This particular construction is not essential, however.

In order to provide a construction insaid shuttle with a thread-guiding aperture 24 situated approximately centrally of the bobbin, said aperture preferably being made somewhat larger than the threadso as to facilitate the threading operation. In threading up the shuttle the thread 25 from the bobbin is first threaded through the aperture 24 and is then passed through the aperture 26 situated near the top edge of the shuttle and in such a position that the thread passing therethrough will pass freely over the edge of the upper flange 17 of the bobbin. As the thread is drawn from the bobbin, therefore, it passes through the aperture 24 around a portion of the shuttle body and then back through the aperture 26, as shown best in Figs. 1 and 3. This construction has the advantage that no sharp bends are formed in the thread as it leaves the shuttle which are likely to kink it, and further since the aperture 21 is situated substantially centrally of the bobbin the thread will be unwound from all parts of the bobbin with a substantially even tension.

Another feature of my invention relates to the construction of the shuttle which facilitates its passage through the needle loop. In some shuttles of this class the bobbin is placed into the shuttle chamber from the upper side and the shuttle is provided at the lower end of the bobbin chamber with inturned flanges which form a seat on which the bobbin rests. This construction necessitates more or less metal on the underside of the shuttle adjacent the lower end of the bobbin-receiving chamber which results in the formation of a suflicient shoulder at this point to prevent the loop of needle thread freely passing thereover. said shoulder giving to the shuttle substantially the shape shown in dotted lines at 29 in Fig. 4. In order to relieve the situation such shuttles have sometimes been cut away approximately at a point 27. When the shuttle is thus cut away at this point. however, it has been found that the shuttle thread is carried so low at a certain point in the cycle of movements that it is apt to become entangled or caught on the shuttle driver which engages the shuttle at substantially this point. My improved shuttle avoids these difliculties because the manner of supporting the bobbin in the bobbin-receiving chamber obviates the necessity of providing a shuttle with the inturned flanges above referred to and permits the exterior face of the shuttle to be rounded and made more tapered at the point 30, as shown in Figs. 4 and 5, so that no appreciable obstruction is afforded to the passage of the 100 31 of needle thread over the shuttle. T is is a very important feature in sewing machines that are designed for high speed operation because where sewing machines are running at an extremely high speed anything which creates an unnecessary resistance between the needle'thread and the shuttle is a detriment. Inasmuch as my improved shuttle can be made considerably tapering at 30 it is unnecessary to cut away or reduce the shuttle at 27, and as a consequence the portion 27 of the shuttle furnishes a suflicient support for the shuttle thread in certain positions of the shuttle to prevent said thread from becoming caught or entangled in the shuttle driver which engages the shuttle at this point.

I claim:

1. A sewing machine shuttle having a shuttle body provided with an open-ended bobbin-receiving chamber having a recess in one wall thereof, a bobbin retainer extending transversely across the open end of said chamber and capable'of bodily movement toward and from the shuttle body and when in operative position having its end occu pying said recess, means for holding yieldingly said retainer in its operative position, said retainer having a bobbincentering projection, means on the opposite side of the shuttle body from said retainer by which the latter can be moved into its inoperative position, and fa second bobbin-centering projection on said latter side of the shuttle body cooperating with the first-named projection to retain a bobbin in position. i

2. A sewing machine shuttle having a shuttle-body provided with a bobbin-receiving chamber open on one side of the shuttle and having a bobbin-centering plate on the opposite side of the shuttle, said centering plate presenting a conical bobbin-centering.

projection, a bobbin retainer extending across the open end of said chamber and provided with a conical centering projection adapted to enter the central aperture of ing chamber open at the under side of the shuttle body for the insertion of a bobbin into or its removal from said chamber and also provided on its upper side at one end with a point or hook of considerably less thickness than that of the shuttle body, the upper side of which hook-is in the plane of the upper face of the shuttle body, the under surface of the shuttle tapering from the under side of the hook to the open end of the said bobbin-receiving chamber there by presenting a gradually-tapering surface free from shoulders over which the loop of needle thread can freely pass, and a spring actuated bobbin retainer extending across the open end of the bobbin-receiving chamber and normally occupying a position substantially flush with the face of the shuttle body.

In testimony whereof, I have signed my name to" this ecification, in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

CHRISTIAN H. HAGELSTEIN.

Witnesses:

Lows 0. SMITH, BERTEA F. HEUSER. 

